“Okay…in answer to your question, I did cut a few demos under A-Tack, but that wasn’t until later. Back then we were thugs—legends in our own minds. While we were waiting to be discovered, we had to eat and we needed pocket money, so we sold to the neighborhood white boys who fed our delusions by thinking we was real cool. Darnell was the front man because he had the best social skills. He also had pipes, so if anyone was gonna make it in the music business, it would be Darnell. He said that he knew all these hotshot rock stars and producers and we should form a rap group. Not that Darnell really wanted a group—he’s a solo man if ever there was one—but he needed me.”

He took a breath.

“Darnell had the most talent, but I wrote the songs. Back then if you rapped it, you wrote it. Nowadays, these corporate producers have scores of people writing rap undercover for the bros. It’s all soulless and it’s all shit. Empty words ’bout bling and sex and hos and money because the shit is made to sell to whites. Nothing about social issues anymore. Whitey didn’t like NWA, but they touched core issues in the community.”

Marge just nodded.

“Like you care.” He didn’t try to hide his disdain. “I’m boring you.”

“No, you’re not and I do care,” Marge retorted. “Every day that I work I’m acutely aware that there are victims who can’t talk for themselves. I wouldn’t be a homicide detective if all I wanted to do was bust heads. Right now my victim is Bennett Little and that’s why I’m here. Did you ever record with Darnell?”

“I’m getting to that. Y’see, Darnell kept asking me to write stuff to show to the producers.”

“Where’d he meet these producers?”

“I suppose he met them while running drugs, but I couldn’t swear to it. He was higher up the ladder than Leroy and me. I never really swallowed the fantasy, and I was shocked when Darnell came through.”

“Primo Ekerling.”

He rolled his eyes. “Not yet, no.”

“Sorry. I’ll wait my turn.”

He smiled. “Like I said, Darnell came through. We got some studio time to cut a couple of demos, but that was as far as we went because Darnell got busted and they shipped him off to Ohio.”

“Who produced the demos?” Marge asked.

“We didn’t have a producer, just an engineer who recorded the vocal track. We did some stuff together, and we did some stuff individually. He told us the percussion and instrumentation would be added later. It never went that far. After Darnell got busted, Leroy and I were sent back to the ’hood, and I spent most of our time getting stoned.”

His eyes drifted from Marge’s face.